Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device and a method for storage. In particular, the present invention relates to a device and a method for virtual storage.
Descriptions of the Related Art
Converged Datacenter Infrastructure has been the newest trend for cloud-based systems over recent years. Under this infrastructure, the computing tier is integrated with the storage tier on the same physical layer of a cloud-based system so that the space and cost necessary for the cloud-based system can be reduced greatly. However, this infrastructure does not support traditional storage array protocols such as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) protocol or a Storage Attachment Network (SAN) protocol, which is generally used for storage access and management. Therefore, it is not convenient for users to perform storage access and management under this infrastructure.
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a cloud-based system under the Converged Datacenter Infrastructure. As shown in FIG. 1, the cloud-based system 1 may comprise a plurality of devices including a device 11 and at least one device 19 (i.e., one or more devices 19). The device 11 may comprise a physical processor 111 and physical storage 119. The device 11 may further comprise a hypervisor 113 executed on the physical processor 111. The hypervisor 113 may create at least one client virtual machine 115 and a controller virtual machine 117. The hypervisor 113, the at least one client virtual machine 115 and the controller virtual machine 117 belong to the computing tier of the device 11, while the physical storage 119 belongs to the storage tier of the device 11.
Likewise, each device 19 may comprise a physical processor and a hypervisor executed on the physical processor. In addition, the hypervisor of each device 19 may create at least one client virtual machine and a controller virtual machine 197. In addition, the hypervisor, the at least one client virtual machine and the controller virtual machine 197 belong to the computing tier of the corresponding device 19, while the physical storage 199 belongs to the storage tier of the corresponding device 19. For the sake of simplification, the hypervisor and the client virtual machine of each device 19 are not shown in FIG. 1. The devices 11 or 19 may be a computing device such as a computer, a notebook, a tablet, a smart cell phone, etc.
The physical storage 119 and all the physical storages 199 are clustered to form a storage cluster 20 via the connections among the controller virtual machine 117 and all the controller virtual machines 197. Under this infrastructure, if a user wants to access the storage cluster 20 of the device 11, he or she must use the at least one client virtual machine 115 to request the hypervisor 113 to instruct the controller virtual machine 117 to create a virtual storage space in the storage cluster 20. For example, the at least one client virtual machine 115 may create a virtual disc (not shown), while the hypervisor 113 may instruct the controller virtual machine 117 to create a virtual storage space with a virtual index (not shown) corresponding to the virtual disc in the storage cluster 20. Accordingly, under this infrastructure, storage access and management must be controlled by the hypervisor 113, which the virtualization infrastructure such as VMware Vsphere provides, so that the user cannot independently perform them based on traditional storage array protocols. In addition, the user cannot own and manage an independent storage space under this infrastructure.
In view of this, it is important to provide a storage access and management solution for cloud-based systems under the Converged Datacenter Infrastructure in the art.